Recently Glendale chose its first Poet Laureate: Raffi Joe Wartanian. The poet, who teaches writing at UCLA, reflects the population of Glendale itself. He’s the son of Armenian parents from Lebanon and part of the first generation of his family to be born in the United States. In a city that’s close to 40% Armenian being chosen Poet Laureate is not surprising. However, Wartanian wasn’t chosen because of his ethnic background. He was chosen “in recognition of his accomplishments in poetry and his vision for the ‘Glendale Poet Laureate as someone who can utilize writing to promote self-expression, find common ground across communities and foster solidarity that celebrates diversity while embracing individuality,'” according to the Glendale News-Press.
Celebrating diversity and individuality are facets of Wartanian’s entire life. He’s deeply connected to his Armenian roots and taps into Armenian and his family’s history. How important it is to not erase who you are and where you come from. The history behind it. Even when who you are and your people’s history manifests itself in a name. As Wartanian says in his essay “Changing the History in Family Names,” about his father adopting the name George upon immigrating to the United States, since his name Ghevant is difficult to pronounce: “I cringed whenever my father called himself George…I wanted him to teach people [to] appreciate its Armenian origins,” because “Ghevont is a canonized orator…” in Armenian history.
The Glendale Poet Laureate position was created due in large part to poet and Glendale resident Linda Ravenswood. On Facebook she said, “About 8 years ago I started asking the city officials of my town if they would consider a poet laureate program. They all said no. For years.
But in 2022 a new Mayor came to town. And lo and behold, 8 years later, Mayor Ardy Ardashes Kassakhian put my proposal to the City Council & on September 30th…it passed! Mayor Ardy = hero!!!”
Ravenswood is a poet who loves to create literary events and literacy and outreach programs and collaborative readings, so it made sense for her to push for a Poet Laureate position in her own city, even if initially she wanted to create the position for herself because she had been runner up for four other local Poet Laureate appointments. When Mayor Kassakhian asked her to be on the selection committee and to pilot the first year of the program, her dreams were dashed again. But friends, especially LAist Higher Education Correspondent Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, “were quick to remark that though it might be slightly disappointing, what the Mayor was asking me was really essential…So I gratefully accepted his wonderful and generous request.” She was joined on the selection committee by Glendale Arts & Culture Commissioner Sevana Zadorian, Los Angeles Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson and poet and instructor at Glendale Community College Julie Gamberg.
The position’s goals that Wartanian is set to fill include “honoring the city’s multitudes of cultures, visiting schools and showering poetry, literacy and love on students, young and old.” As a friend of “art, and song, and memory,” Wartanian will be “shown open doors to share history, and elevate storytelling.”
Raffi Joe Wartanian’s work includes critical pieces about Armenian American writers. Writers who are writing through and past the traumas of their people. To show they are more than. Taking the humanity back from war which aims to destroy it. Which aimed to destroy their people. “[H]ow life in a war zone can transcend trauma.”
Wartanian also understands that “no matter the upheaval—pandemic, war, genocide—we are and must continue to be the keepers of each other’s stories. This is how we can survive.” It’s a lesson he learned from his great uncle Apar, before he passed away in March of 2020 from COVID, exacerbating other underlying health issues. A funeral Wartanian watched, and as “the casket lower[ed] into the earth…the video signal froze into a pixelated blur of tombstones and trees,” he relates in his op-ed for the Miami Herald.
Wartanian is not only a poet and writer. He’s also a multi-instrumentalist, composer, lyricist, and singer-songwriter. His music reflects the influences of his experiences, the stories he’s been a part of and came into contact with. Growing up, spending time visiting family in Beirut during the summer “meant a deeper appreciation for the way” the traditions of his family could coexist. These are traditions, especially the musical traditions “of the spaces my family has lived. As Armenians from the Levant and the Armenian Highlands, the sounds of Armenian, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, French and many other styles of music were prevalent in our home…Growing up in Baltimore, I found myself in another stylistic kaleidoscope built on rock, blues, soul and bluegrass,” he mentioned in a h-pem interview.
Wartanian wanted to use these influences authentically “to let the instrument sing,” because “I felt like…technology was creating a separation between myself and the music.” That’s because “I wanted to return to the origins of music.” The stories and sounds that truly originate from people and their cultures.
Music and writing are parts of Wartanian’s broader personal mission, to tell stories that engage in social justice, creativity and innovative institutions. That’s why he’s lead creative writing workshops for incarcerated writers, veterans and youth affected by war through Letters for Peace, a conflict transformation workshop he’s created. And in 2017, Wartanian collaborated with Glendale’s Abril Books, the Lakota People’s Law Project, and In His Shoes to launch Days of Solidarity: Celebrating Armenian and Native American Survival, a multiday performance and workshop that united Armenian and Indigenous people in Glendale.
Now, poet, writer and musician, Raffi Joe Wartanian, will officially bring his personal mission to Glendale. Work that Mayor Kassakhian claimed in the Glendale News-Press, “reflects the diversity and intricacies of our city and residents.” After eight years of work by poet and resident Linda Ravenswood, Glendale finally has a Poet Laureate.
Los Angeles Literature 